The Wanderer in Africa

"Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile."—Psalm xxxii. 1, 2.

"No use, it won't do. Rhinoceros hide won't get another yard out of them beasts! We must outspan * for the night!" exclaimed Hans Kuhe, the Dutch Boer, † after Pollux, his Hottentot driver, had been for an hour belabouring, with the huge whip, eight unfortunate oxen that were vainly trying to drag his waggon through a sandy African waste.

• Unyoke. † Dutch farmer at the Cape Colony.

"If we could but have reached water—the poor beasts are dying of thirst," observed David, an English lad who was servant to the Boer. "Eight oxen are not enough to draw that heavy waggon."

And he looked with pity at the panting creatures, whose sides were seamed with weals, and bleeding from the whip which Pollux had plied with such merciless force.

Hans muttered a curse on the four oxen that had died on the road, and a fiercer one upon the Bushmen who had carried off two others during the night. He was a large, bulky man, with coarse features bloated by intemperance, his brandy-bottle and his pipe being his two constant companions.